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By VIRGINIA SHANK
Special to the Salem News
LORDSTOWN – Almost since the beginning, workers at the local General Motors Assembly Plant have heard rumors that any day could bring the final shutdown of the assembly line that has manufactured millions of vehicles since the first car – a 1966 Chevrolet Impala sport sedan – rolled out of production at 10 a.m. April 28, 1966, and into the ownership of the Warren Tribune Chronicle – a sister Ogden newspaper of the Salem News -?50 years ago this Thursday.
“But here we are,” said Ken Picklesimer. “Fifty years later and we’re still here. There have been a lot of ups and downs, a lot of changes over the years, but I think we’re as strong, if not stronger, than we’ve ever been.”
Picklesimer was 20 years old when he started working at the Lordstown plant Aug. 24, 1967. That was just about a year after the first vehicle left the assembly line.
The vehicle that was built for Martin Chevrolet, the predecessor to Diane Sauer Chevrolet, was purchased by the Tribune Chronicle.
Picklesimer still works at the plant, today serving as a coordinator on the assembly line.
Since 1966, the largest single line manufacturing facility in the world, with more than 23.5 miles of conveyor and 1,200 robots, has produced a long line of cars, including the Chevrolet Caprice, Pontiac Firebird, Chevrolet Vega, GMC Vandura, Buick Skylark and Chevrolet Cavalier, among others. Today it is producing GM’s top-selling car, the Chevrolet Cruze.
“It wasn’t always easy,” said Glenn Johnson, president, United Auto Workers Local 1112, who started at the plant in 1977. “But the fact that we’re here today and producing the Cruze says a lot about our membership, the plant and all of its workers and the community.
“Lordstown has seen hard times, but we’ve come through it and now we’re a strong work force and we’re proud of the Cruze and the work we do,” said Rob Morales, president of UAW Local 1714. “We’ve worked hard to get where we are today, but we’re putting out a quality product, something to be proud of. That says a lot.”
Morales, who started at the plant in 1995 and was elected to his current post in 2013, followed in the footsteps of his father, who started working at the Lordstown plant in the late 1960s. He said challenges like the recession in 2008, layoffs and GM’s bankruptcy took a toll on workers, but didn’t break them.
“We’ve really stood together and worked with management to build a strong plant. And after everything, here we are. We’re still standing,” Morales said.
Thursday marks the 50th year of that initial rollout. GM and United Auto Workers Local 1112, the first union to represent plant employees, will host an open house May 20 at Lordstown Complex East and a car show May 21 to celebrate the anniversary.
The plant, which had some 12,000 workers at its peak, now has about 4,500, including nearly 3,000 assembly-plant workers represented by UAW Local 1112 and about 1,400 fabrication plant workers represented by UAW Local 1714.
“It’s an accomplishment,” said Tim O’Hara, who was 18 when he started at Lordstown. “It’s hard enough to last 50 years in anything … but in this industry, it’s quite an accomplishment.”
O’Hara, UAW Local 1112 vice president, and Johnson were among 1,200 workers hired in September 1977. O’Hara said of those employees, there are about 100 remaining at the plant.
“When I was hired, there were about 9,000 people working between the car and van plants. The plant’s had a lot of people come and go. Some came back, some went in other directions,” O’Hara said.
Despite heated labor talks, a series of layoffs and callbacks, the strikes of the late 1960s and early 1970s, vehicle recalls and GM’s 2009 bankruptcy filing, Lordstown has emerged as the home of one of GM’s top-selling cars, and the only one now running along the plant’s conveyor system – the Chevy Cruze.
How it all started
Announcing plans to build its Chevrolet Division’s largest car assembly plant, General Motors bought 965 acres in February 1956 in what was then a rural Lordstown Township. The company broke ground for the new plant Sept. 29, 1964, and started production within the next two years. UAW Local 1112 was chartered by the UAW International Union on June 9,1966, to represent hundreds of workers.
In October 1968, ground was broken for the Fisher Body Metal Fabricating plant. Two months later, in December 1968, the company broke ground for the now-closed van assembly plant.
Around that time, Jim Graham started working at the plant when he was 21 and a student at Youngstown State University. He stayed at Lordstown until he retired as UAW Local 1112 president in 2012, after serving in that position since 1997.
“I started out making seats,” Graham said. “It worked for me. It was a good place to be. Like anyone who was there for any length of time, I saw good times and bad times.”
By 1970, production was started in the fabricating plant with the first Vega stampings and the assembly plant was producing Chevrolet Caprices, Impalas and Bel Airs. At that time, Lordstown was considered the most modern GM plant and its 6,000 employees were called GM’s best.
But with that success came the struggles.
The 1972 walkout
Analysts have attributed the 1972 strike – one of many in the late 1960s and early 1970s at the Lordstown assembly plant – at least in part, to work speed-ups along the assembly line. The effects of the strike among what was considered a young work force rippled across Lordstown, throughout the community and across the country.
By 1971, when Chevrolet introduced its new car – the Vega – the plant’s two employee divisions were consolidated under the General Motors Assembly Division.
Reports surfaced of defective Chevys coming off the line with torn upholstery and other issues. Defective Vegas jammed the plant’s repair lot daily, and workers’ grievances topped 15,000.
Next came the March 1972 walkout that lasted 22 days, cost GM millions of dollars and gave voice to the term “Lordstown Syndrome” that was used by journalists in reference to workers dissatisfied with the quality of their jobs and bitter toward management. Workers have said they were much less concerned about issues related to their pay and benefits.
In 2001, as Lordstown veteran executive Bob Dickerson was preparing to retire, he described the plant to former Tribune Chronicle business editor Larry Ringler as one that symbolized America’s manufacturing might and worker discontent, a syndrome known as the “blue collar blues.”
New technology at the plant promised more automation and a more efficient line than some auto workers had experienced. But reports surfaced that workers were disgruntled that the plant’s new fast-paced assembly line forced them to work at an increased speed.
“The early ’70s were hard. I’d say 1972 to ’73 were the worst years,” Picklesimer recalled last week. “A lot of strife. It wasn’t the Lordstown we have today.”
Shifting gears
The 1980s brought the retooling of the plant for production of the J-Cars, the Chevrolet Cavalier and the Pontiac 2000 Sunbird. But in 1982, with a growing economic recession, layoffs took place at the J-Car, van and body plants, bringing the number of idled employees to more than 6,000.
But hundreds of workers were called back and the plant was honored in 1983 for producing the best quality car among GMAD’s 16 plants for the 1983 model year.
In 1989, GM announced plans to close the Lordstown van plant in 1992. The company consolidated production of Chevrolet and GMC full-size vans at its assembly plant in Flint, Mich.
On March 20, 1992, the van plant produced its last van, almost 22 years to the day after production began. Workers there shifted to the car plant.
The 1990s brought labor tensions over outsourcing and rumors of a full plant closure with GM’s plan to consolidate plants.
In November 1998, after word spread that GM planned to double its car production in Mexico, putting Lordstown at risk of not getting a new car after 2003, Mahoning Valley business and community leaders helped workers launch the ”Bring It Home!” publicity campaign to persuade the automaker to build a new car in Lordstown. The Youngstown Warren Regional Chamber joined the fight, which Graham called instrumental in securing a new vehicle for the local plant.
“That was something,” said Graham. “You talk about solidarity. It was everywhere. You couldn’t go anywhere without seeing the signs. People recognized the importance of Lordstown and knew we had to fight for this, and we did. The community came out. There were signs on every building in Lordstown and in other areas. We rallied on national TV.”
The early and mid-2000s brought the production of the Cobalt, additional contract talks, shift eliminations, layoffs and buyouts.
In 2007, the UAW, after a three-day walkout, agreed to lower wages for new hires. But with it came a commitment to GM Lordstown for three new vehicles by 2011.
But the challenges persisted.
GM filed for bankruptcy protection June 1, 2009, a time the automaker defined as the bleakest period in its 100-year history. The move marked one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in U.S. history. The company, through its Chapter 11 reorganization, sold assets and some of its subsidiaries. The new GM, or NGMCO, purchased assets of the old GM that continued operating. Still, plant operations continued as new workers conceded to lower wages than veterans, as part of a new two-tier system in the wake of the $80 million government bailout of the U.S. auto industry that ended in 2014.
“It was a scary time,” said Picklesimer. “We weren’t sure what was going to happen. There were times over the years workers would take their retirements. I decided to stick it out. I’m glad I did.”
In rolled the Chevy Cruze – credited with helping GM rebuild.
Cruzing ‘Ground Zero’
In 2010, GM executive Mark Reuss defined the Lordstown plant, long called the cornerstone of the local economy, as “ground zero” for the automaker and the country in the effort to rebuild the nation’s manufacturing base and the Midwest.
Reuss, during a visit to Lordstown from the Detroit corporate headquarters, confirmed to a crowd gathered at the plant that the complex would get 1,200 more workers to build the brand-new Chevrolet Cruze.
“There’s no doubt about it, the Cruze has made a significant impact to Lordstown and GM,” said Tom Mock, spokesman at the Lordstown plant. “It’s been a big part of the rebound, and the workers have been a critical part of that.”
The Cruze, which is sold in 115 countries, finished its first year as the nation’s best-selling compact car at 169,427 units. More than 3.5 million Cruzes have been sold around the world since 2008, and more than 1.25 million of those have been made in Lordstown since the car launched at the plant in 2010.
In the past few years, GM has invested more than $250 million at the local plant to retool and ready it to build the Cruze’s next generation that went into production at Lordstown in February and has been rolling into dealerships across the country since March.
Picklesimer, who is set to retire soon, was an assembler for 28 years before becoming a coordinator on the line. He is now involved with the launching of the 2016 Chevy Cruze.
“I’d say of all the accomplishments at Lordstown, I’m most proud of the new Cruze,” he said. “I think it’s the nicest-looking vehicle we’ve made and the one that’s the best quality. It’s great to be able to go out, to retire, at a time like this when we know we have something here, we’ve been part of something we can be proud of.”